With the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater operating in the red after its second year of one-night-only performances in the summer concert series, Peachtree City Manager Jim Pennington is recommending the elimination of a position there.
The move would eliminate the “events services coordinator” position and replace it with a part-time box office supervisor who would work from March through October. The Peachtree City Council will vote on the recommendation at its meeting Thursday night.
The move will save some $25,000 to $30,000 a year, but a severance package will cost the city about $5,255 this year, cutting into the savings a bit, according to the memo to City Council from Pennington.
Some of the job responsibilities would be reassigned to other staff members, and in some cases to other departments, Pennington said in the memo.
The memo did not say how short the amphitheater’s budget is this year.
In other business, council is expected to vote on a pilot program to lease seven vehicles from a private company that also will maintain them, instead of them being serviced by the city’s fleet maintenance staff.
The proposal is to lease the new vehicles from Enterprise under a state contract.
The city is hoping to decrease fuel costs by using more fuel efficient vehicles while also helping the city’s fleet maintenance staff provide “core service functions on public safety vehicles and other essential equipment” according to the memo from Finance Director Paul Salvatore and Public Services Director Mark Caspar.
The city will be downsizing two of the trucks that are being replaced from the Ford F-250 size to the F-150 size. The deal also replaces two other F-250s and a Ford Ranger with full-size equivalents, and also the city manager’s 2004 Ford Explorer will be downsized to a Ford Fusion SE.
The vehicle lease program will cost the city $30,000 for the initial year.
If the pilot program works well, the city can look later at expanding the process to command staff vehicles for public safety work. Emergency vehicles and those used for pursuit such as police patrol cars, however, would have to come from a different company because Enterprise does not offer those types of vehicles due to liability concerns.
Council also will be presented with a lease-to-own recommendation for $402,000 for 153 computer workstations and software from Dell. That money was set aside in the current city budget.
